Business Hiring
Debate between Baroness Ramsey of Wall Heath and Lord Londesborough
Baroness Ramsey of Wall Heath (Lab)
Yes. As my noble friend quite rightly points out, it is very encouraging to see Manpower reporting an 18 percentage point increase in businesses planning to recruit since last year, and also reporting that we have the fourth most positive hiring outlook globally. That is undeniably good news, though I am sure the whole House will agree with me when I express my keen hope that the England men’s football team goes beyond fourth to become the very best team globally by the end of the week—with apologies to Welsh, Northern Irish and in particular Scottish colleagues across the House.
On the second part of her question, I completely agree with my noble friend that our country has many good employers who see absolutely no conflict between protecting their employees from the consequences of ill health, for example, and running successful companies that compete profitably.
Lord Londesborough (CB)
My Lords, the Government’s White Paper Get Britain Working aims for an 80% employment rate, but 20 months on we remain stuck at 75%. With the recent steep drop in new recruits, can the Minister, who I welcome to her position, point to where these 2 million net new jobs will be coming from?
Baroness Ramsey of Wall Heath (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord for his question. The UK’s employment rate is in the top half of the OECD economies and is above the G7 average. Unemployment also remains low by international standards: in the bottom half of the OECD and lower than Canada, France and the euro area average. The UK has the third-highest employment rate in the G7. Employment is up, inactivity is down and wages continue to grow. We are particularly pleased to see that 399,000 more people have moved into work in the past year.